Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim: “Where does this emphasis on purity come from? What does it mean to singers and conductors? And to writers: As a critic who is compelled to use metaphors to describe the intangible qualities of a performance, I also wonder about the assumptions I’m making when I use certain words. … In the course of phone interviews with performers and scholars, I received an invigorating plurality of points of view – and a sobering reminder of the gap between the way critics and singers talk about the same voices.”